Praise for Cozzens's The Just and the Unjust (1942).

James Gould Cozzens

In "Children into Men: Lawyers and the Law in Three Novels" (The Catholic Lawyer, Oct 2017), New Jersey attorney Gregory J. Sullivan admires the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone novel The Just and the Unjust by Pulitzer Prize recipient James Gould Cozzens (1903–78): "Cozzens' affirmation of the judicial process depicted with a keen eye as to its flaws is compelling because the novel is not measuring the criminal trial—and by extension the law in general—against an impossible utopian ideal" (35).

Further reading: my positive take on The Just and the Unjust.

The ABA's picks, 25 greatest law novels.

The Aug 2013 ABA Journal features the "25 Greatest Law Novels Ever." These include:

• An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser 
• Anatomy of a Murder, Robert Traver 
• Bleak House, Charles Dickens
• The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk
• The Firm, John Grisham
• Native Son, Richard Wright
• The Ox-Bow Incident,
Walter Van Tilburg Clark
• The Paper Chase, John Jay Osborn Jr.
• Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow
• QB VII, Leon Uris
• Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
• To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Some judges wrote essays on notable omissions such as Michelle Zierler on In Cold Blood by Truman Capote and Roz Myers on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone novel The Just and the Unjust by James Gould Cozzens. As an admirer of Cozzens's prose, I would not call his style "fusty," as Myers does. I'm also startled that not one Erle Stanley Gardner novel has been selected. (thanks to the Law and Humanities blog)

Cozzens's "Clerical Error" (1983).

In this April 1983 episode of Tales of the Unexpected, some shady booksellers attempt to extort a dead man's family—with unexpected results. Poirot's Hugh Fraser appears in this adaptation of James Gould Cozzens's "Foot in It" (Redbook Aug. 1935; repr. as "Clerical Error" in venues such as the June 1950 EQMM, Ellery Queen's The Literature of Crime, and Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini's Chapter and Hearse). Cozzens (1903–78), author of the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone novel The Just and the Unjust and the Pulitzer Prize winner Guard of Honor (admired by Raymond Chandler), was dubbed "the Garbo of U.S. letters" by Time magazine in 1957.

New light on the neglected.

An unexpected sidelight to the Authors Guild's lawsuit against HathiTrust is the attention it has garnered for authors and works that may have been neglected in recent years (although I was stunned that J. R. Salamanca's The Lost Country [1958] initially was included in HathiTrust's orphan works list. Prof. Salamanca was a major presence at University of Maryland––College Park when I was a student there and has just signed an ebook deal for one of his works).

James Gould Cozzens,
from the cover of the
Jan. 4, 1936, Saturday
Review of Literature

One work initially on HathiTrust's orphaned list (pulled when the heir of the estate, Harvard, was revealed) was Pulitzer Prize winner James Gould Cozzens's first novel, Confusion (1924), which he published at age 21 and is deemed by Daniel S. Burt in The Chronology of American Literature (2004) to be "pretentiously overwritten" (371). Cozzens himself ended up not thinking much of the novel, which focuses on the search by a young Frenchwoman to realize her ambitions.

Cozzens is on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list for his fine novel The Just and the Unjust (1942; about the effects of a murder on a small town, especially its implications for the ambitious assistant DA. A 1942 issue of Esquire chose The Just and the Unjust as a good Christmas present for an "average reader," along with Maugham's The Hour before the Dawn).

Cozzens also wrote "Foot in It" (Redbook 1935; repr. as "Clerical Error," EQMM June 1950 and Muller & Pronzini, eds., Chapter & Hearse; adapted for Tales of the Unexpected, 1983). Raymond Chandler thought highly of Cozzens's Guard of Honor (1948). Gordon Van Ness has written an interesting essay about Cozzens's work in honor of Cozzens biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli, including Cozzens's criticism of Fitzgerald, Dos Passos, and Capote as well as his own work: "To learn to write and to write decently is simply a much longer and harder thing than is generally admitted" (203).

I also found that full text of Leslie Ford's The Girl from the Mimosa Club (1957, selected by Mystery Loves Company bookstore as one of the best mysteries of the 20th century) is in the HathiTrust library. After consulting with author Marcia Talley (who knows a lot about Ford's oeuvre and personal background), checking copyright records, and reviewing copyright law, I think it probably did go out of copyright.

U.S. writers on Time covers.

John P. Marquand,
from The Rotarian
(Aug 1949)

The Web site of the American Writers Museum (a proposed new museum on American literature) highlights the Time magazine covers since 1923 that have featured U.S. writers. Mystery fans will appreciate the ones with Craig Rice (1946), Mr. Moto creator John P. Marquand (1949), noted mystery critic and Columbia University provost Jacques Barzun (1956), Scott Turow (1990), and Michael Crichton (1995). Missed is James Gould Cozzens (1957), author of the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone work The Just and the Unjust (1942).

Has a writer ever been selected as Time's Person of the Year? I can't recall.

"New" author discoveries.

As J. Kingston Pierce tagged me over on The Rap Sheet for my author discoveries in 2008, I list some of them below, albeit with the caveat that this year, I made a concerted effort to read books I'd heard about as must-reads without regard to their original release date.

• Nicholas Blake, Thou Shell of Death. A sad but splendid mystery that deals with the aftermath of World War I, written by the pseudonymous British poet laureate Cecil Day Lewis.
  

• James Gould Cozzens, The Just and the Unjust. A wise and penetrating novel by a Pulitzer Prize winner on how a murder trial affects the residents of a small Pennsylvania town, in both political and personal terms.

• Helen Eustis,The Horizontal Man. Although its once ground-breaking twist ending may not surprise modern readers, this roman à clef about Smith College by a friend of Carson McCullers is still a terrific read.
  

• Frances [Newbold] Noyes Hart, The Bellamy Trial. Based on the Hall-Mills murder case that also inspired Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, this accomplished novel by a relative of Edith Wharton portrays the circus atmosphere of a sensational trial through the eyes of witnesses and journalists, including the myriad ways in which circumstances may not be what they seem.
  

And an entry in nonfiction:

• Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. A wrenching look by the president of Harvard at how the survivors on both sides of the Civil War dealt with the impact of more than a half-million casualties—particularly appropriate in this CSI age as to the efforts to identify and repatriate remains. (Go here for a Faust presentation at the National Archives.)
  

Cornerstone: The Just and the Unjust by James Gould Cozzens

Note: This continues my occasional series on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list (those mysteries deemed essential by Howard Haycraft and Ellery Queen).

There's no focal point with a jury; the jury is the public itself. That's why a jury can say when a judge couldn't, "I don't care what the law is, that isn't right and I won't do it." It's the greatest prerogative of free men. . . .We pay a price for lay participation in the law; but it's a necessary expense.—James Gould Cozzens, The Just and the Unjust 428

The effect of a murder trial on a small Pennsylvania town is the focus of James Gould Cozzens's The Just and the Unjust (1942), which is mostly told through the point of view of Abner Coates, the young assistant district attorney. Because the victim is an unpleasant farmer involved with drugs and the accused perpetrators little more than thugs, the local law enforcement community regards the case more as a matter of duty than one of justice. The flamboyant defense attorney seems more interested in scoring points against the methodical district attorney, and Coates, who is the son of a prominent judge and is approached to run for DA by the local political boss, wonders if he will lose his soul if he takes the job.

Cozzens's honest, direct prose and grappling with legal dilemmas are refreshing to read, and he has a sure understanding of the myriad connections, political implications, and personal and professional troubles in a small town. Cozzens (1903–78) is best known for the World War II novel Guard of Honor (1948), for which he received a Pulitzer Prize. Herbert Gorman in the July 26, 1942, New York Times considered The Just and the Unjust "an analysis of what might be called the American way of discipline." Time magazine called The Just and the Unjust "as skillfully served up as The Postman Always Rings Twice [and . . .] the year's most interesting literary disappointment." Yet Time put Cozzens on the cover of its Sept. 2, 1957, issue, calling him "the Garbo of U.S. letters" in its accompanying story.

Harvard Acquires James Gould Cozzens Materials.

The blog of Harvard's Houghton Library Modern Books and Manuscripts reports on its acquisition of materials relating to author James Gould Cozzens (1903-78). Cozzens won the Pulitzer Prize for his World War II book Guard of Honor (1948), and his legal novel The Just and the Unjust (1942) appears on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list.

Happy birthday, James Cozzens.

James Gould Cozzens, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1948 novel Guard of Honor but also has a place on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list for his 1942 novel The Just and the Unjust, was born today in 1903. He died in 1978.

The Just and the Unjust centers on a murder trial in a small Pennsylvania town, with Cozzens's careful attention to legal procedure and the main character, a young assistant district attorney who wrestles with questions of justice and ambition. Time magazine called The Just and the Unjust "as skillfully served up as The Postman Always Rings Twice [and . . .] the year's most interesting literary disappointment." Yet Time put Cozzens on the cover of its Sept. 2, 1957, issue, calling him "the Garbo of U.S. letters" in its accompanying story.